"Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart," Keuikae said calmly, reiterating her overflowing sense of gratitude for Solus' intervention for the hundredth time.

  Having kept a mental note of every instance of appreciation, Kara found it oddly commendable that any one person could perform such an act more than three times in a row. The girl repeatedly bowed from her couch on the other side of the carriage, which she had managed to convince Solus to enter, an achievement of such a task aided in most part by Nebula.

  Not that Keuikae knew of the existence of the spirits within Solus, her sense of obligation continued to hound her to give her dues to them, basically forcing her into an infinite loop of thanking each one of them through Solus instead.

  "You're giving him too much credit, missy; he would've walked right past that monster if One hadn't pointed it out to him," Kara stated proudly and boldly, her already super sweet girly voice reaching a new flavour of sweetness as her pride reached its lowest apex level. The sound of Kara's voice was a soothing mix of sweetness and cuteness, like an audible form of a fluffy cloud had descended from above to grace the group's ears. Much to Kara's annoyance, her voice had the usual effect on the unacustomed, compelling those enthralled by her voice to contentedly sigh and awe at her, again, much to Kara's annoyance.

  Only when the novelty of the Raiden's voice had worn off, Kara's missy comment struck Keuikae right in her pride, causing her to mentally jolt back at how a kid could get on her nerves just like those snobby and dismissive nobles.

  Her face briefly displayed her true feelings, that of reluctant frustration from a child managing to get under her skin, and making her silently understand the reason for Solus' prior punting comment for the Codex holder.

  "But still, how did you manage to take down that Pnuerion Beast without a spirit gear?" the teen girl mused, left to wonder and ponder if Solus had an unorthodox-looking spirit gear that blended in with his clothing, or maybe that his outfit was the spirit gear itself.

  "Spirit gear?" Solus uttered in confusion, only to be aggressively kicked in the leg by the insectoid-appendaged adorned girl. Much to Kara's annoyance, Solus didn't even register her kicks in the slightest, despite how intensely sounding her strikes were, only exacerbating her frustration at his lack of awareness and comically bad preservation at keeping their otherworlder status a secret.

  Luckily for the duo, well, Kara's peace of mind, Solus' question was interpreted by their fellow teen as a result of him having lived in some remote village that isn't at the mercy of any monsters, especially given the duo's attire, which was certainly unusual in itself.

  "Yeah, mine got busted up when that Pnuerion Beast ambushed my knig- iem the escorts here," Keuikae added, her tone infused with concern as she mulled over how she'd explain the state of her spirit gear to her tutor. "Good grief, Mrs Nietou is going to give me an earful for breaking another Elaphe cartage."

  Catching herself getting derailed from her original question, Keuikae shot up to a professional sitting posture, in a frantic manner, before blurting out, "Now stop stalling and tell me! How'd you do it?"

  With a light hmph and somehow pouting with her face remaining completely mute and neutral, Kara halted in her efforts to get a rise out of Solus from kicking the unfazed guy.

  "He noticed there was a buildup of spirit energy in its body, so he broke it," Kara grumbled, intentionally forcing her voice into a dull drone to suppress as much of her girly-sounding voice as possible, in hopes of sounding less childish. For a brief moment, Keuikae went silent, finding the thing Kara said oddly familiar as she relentlessly tried to recall why the explanation sounded like she'd heard it before.

  "Oh...oohh, are you talking about that technique mentioned in some academy-level history books?"

  "Do we look like we've been to a library, let alone an academy one, before?" Solus asked rhetorically, while pushing his finger into Kara's face to keep the smol girl metaphorically at bay from asking about the academy library.

  Lightly chuckling, Keuikae brought a hand to her face to shyly itch her cheek as she uttered, "Fair... I only saw that book in question because my boyfriend is a book freak and will do whatever it takes to get his hands on all manner of knowledge, even if it's all gibberish to me."

  "Sounds like someone's got competition," Kyoshina uttered cheekily from within Solus' inner world. The non-spirit's remark of snark came as no surprise to any of the spirits around her, some even having bet on what her comment would be and having the winner get pushed to the front of the waiting line to have Solus use their spirit weapon.

  Groans of despair erupted in Solus' mind, none of which were his own, that drowned out the sole cheering of the victorious spirit, who'd secretly got a tip from Solmeuetzo. Even though he could've easily one himself, the oldest of all spirits decided to take a more discreet way of winning, since the guy himself deemed that his extensive first-hand knowledge of Kyoshina would make his participation unfair, so he went with tipping off one of the more timid spirits.

  Left to stew on who the bet winner could possibly be based on the tune of the cheer, Solus actively tried to focus on where the object that evaded Kara's ability to identify could've flown off to. But his mind easily wandered off topic as he recalled Kara insisting on proving her identification still worked by constantly pointing out facts about every little thing she was presented with, which had been the reason he'd been so unobservant as he tried to ignore her until she pointed out the monster attacking people.

  "All those spirits of yours are so lively and energetic, deary, almost makes me and the girls jelly~"

  The endearingly sweet, womanly voice appearance silenced Solus' very capability to form words in his mind, hitting him like a bucket of ice-chilling water being dumped on his head as the all too familiar reverberations of his mind being dragged into his subconscious. In a matter of seconds, Solus found himself dragged into a white void, spanning endlessly in every direction without any identifier of the passage of time.

  Panning his gaze upwards, the ripples of the ocean above caught Solus' attention, rising and falling against the shores of the small island which housed the many spirits that aided him in his endeavours.

  Forcing his eyes shut and back open at an unprecedentedly swift speed, hoping to find himself back in Keuikae's carriage, Solus was just as quickly disappointed as the once white expanse became filled with saturation, signifying to him the arrival of a troublesome gaggle of spirits.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  From the colourful ground, all manner of whimsical-themed rooms sprouted around Solus, like the formation of brand new ideas from the guy merely thinking of these particular spirits. From ancient libraries that twisted and turned without reason, to an overly cluttered artisan studio, and various types of freakishly mismatched workshops from different fields of research and even eras.

  From the many rooms, sparks of flames fueled and made of spirit energy[spirally energy] soared to life, blasting towards him like energetic puppies.

  "Oh-ho~ would you look at that, I told you girls that Soli still has a place in his heart for us~" the largest flame of spirit energy, one made that's colours resembled that of a nebula-night sky, said teasingly to the other spirit flames as they all swarmed around Solus.

  Leaning his head to the side, Solus couldn't help but point something out to the unorthodox spirits. "Hard not to when you five forced a part of your souls into mine"

  "Which we wouldn't have been able to do if you'd put even a subconscious effort to push us out, so what does that say about you? Can't comprehend going back to not having us at your beck and call, Little Soluso?" a bratty-sounding girl asked with obnoxious snark, her voice emanating from the smallest pink spirit flame that sat itself on top of Solus' head.

  "Now-now, Knight. If we tease him too much, he'll end the telepathic connection before we can ask him our question," the ring-leader of the spirit flames announced, knowing that pushing Solus' buttons too far would only delay her in getting the answers she wanted.

  "Why are you referring to each other by your titles?" Solus asked with mild contemplation, wondering if this was another one of their games to tease him somehow, since their names were naturally hard to remember and pronounce.

  Continuing to speak, since it was still her turn, the pink spirit flame, Knight stated, "Sol made a bet with us the other day, and we lost. So we had to choose between not being allowed to say each other's names or having to recite a poem of his choosing to the original wielder of the Life and Creation Keither Core."

  "And I thought Granny's bet conditions were bizarre," Solus grumbled under his exacerbated breath before adding, "Now onto why you've put me to sleep."

  "Yeah, Queen. Why're we making a big deal out of something so small? I mean, we can still talk to him," Knight teased as she nestled herself even further into Solus' hair.

  "Indeed... I suppose questions are in order. Now, why did your connection to us suddenly get weaker, Soli?" Queen asked as her tone gained a flicker of a pouty tone, the flickering of her nebula-coloured flames matching that of her fluctuating words.

  Solus knew his clarity of mind wasn't going to make it to the end of the day, the second he answered. Only a droning headache, not dissimilar from getting hit on the head with a hammer, awaited him from the relentless hounding he'd get from the five for his carelessness should he word things carelessly.

  "And here I thought you spirit artesers were always in the fashion of spying on me twenty-four seven," Solus remarked teasingly as he wagged a finger at the encompassing spirit flames, hoping to redirect their attention from the question so he could tell them each separately at a later date to minimise the unavoidable outcome.

  With Knight's turn of talking to Solus ending, signified by the floating candelabrum flames shifting hue values, the golden spirit flame added, "The correct way to say it is: The Transendent Sages of The Spirit Artes: The Soulidirgea. Also, do you think we'd test Nebi's patience again after what happened last time? We're crazy at most, not stupid."

  "Only you say it that way in full, Bishop," Knight said stroppily to the regal, golden-coloured spirit flame, getting an indignantly dignified huff of dismissal.

  Letting out a hearty sigh of defeat, already feeling his impending headache, Solus stated calmly, "Okay, but to answer your question, basically Kara and I got dragged to another world by some strange object that Kara couldn't identify with The Codex."

  For a second, the guy went dead silent with self-directed dumbstruck horror, unable to believe what he had just revealed. Solus mentally kicked himself while screaming like a madman for letting the mere idea of getting a headache muddle his words and inadvertently said things as unfiltered as possible.

  The two bickering members of The Soulidirgea swung their metaphorical heads towards Solus, the message carried through his words somehow more shocking to them than a child learning Santa isn't real.

  "That is serious. The only person I can think of who'd be able to get info for something like that easily is your gramps, Soluso," Knight quipped as she fluttered herself off the head of Solus, twirling through the air with a musical jingle until reaching her fellow spirit flames.

  "Say, is it true what Inaka said happened to your gramps is true, Prince?" the blood red spirit flame asked with a deep, methodical, and commanding womanly voice, her tone almost crass in.

  At hearing her fellow Soulidirgea member call Solus by his title, Queen was filled with a fuzzy, tingly sensation of nostalgia that rushed through her core, leading her flamey form to sway and bobble as she pictured a child Solus and Nebula in her mind."Ah~ Princey, where has the time gone? Although calling you that would be unsuperfluous now. But calling you by your predecessor's title just doesn't feel right after all."

  "And why might that be... aunties?" Solus asked reluctantly, anticipating a response so out of left field it might snap him awake like a jumpscare in someone's nightmare.

  Almost like they had rehersed such a responce, which was far from the case, the many members of The Transendent Sages of The Spirit Artes: The Soulidirgea all announced in perfect unison, "Because that would mean accepting your aren't our cute little Soli anymore, which we all agreed can not stand!"

  Solus couldn't help but doubt the possibility that the women were teasing him once again by hiding knowledge from him, so he could learn things at an appropriate pace instead of at Solmeuetzo's summer school pace.

  "Sol-kun, what are you doing down there?" Nebula asked faintly, her distant voice falling from above and distorted by the layer of water separating the spaces.

  "Uh-oh, gotta bounce," Knight blurted out in a hushed tone, which her fellow cohorts adamantly agreed with. Not letting another second pass, and risking their lives against Nebula's wrath, all but the flames that represented Queen dispersed, and with that, their conscious presences in the deeper level of Solus' Shinsokuko Realm.

  Holding out just a little longer than the others, knowing she'd be the safest and most likely to evade Nebula's wrath, the flames of Queen's form expanded and grew, morphing and altering herself until she was a staggeringly tall humanoid with a voluptuous and pear-shaped figure.

  "Now, who of my two children might you be referring to, and what makes it jarring? Oh yeah, and no mentioning us to anyone other than Kara, though we'd've preferred it if that Codex wasn't so good at capturing the machinations of the infinite multiverses."

  "It's almost jarring how the two of you are related... wait, how'd you know what I was?"

  With a playful twiddle of her fingers before reverting back to her spherical shape, the floating flame of Queen joined the others in their departure, depriving the grand intersection of the many cobbled-together rooms of colour and form. Now finally left alone to think, Solus stood in a world pitch in a world of nothing but unsaturated white, betraying his memory of the once vibrant and chaotic scene from moments prior.

  "At least they didn't get all tied in a bunch at my blunder... hmnn, that thing must be a big deal if it getting the best of me was so easy for those spirits to accept..."